Posted
by
Zonk
on Sunday January 07, 2007 @11:09PM
from the that's-a-big-oopsie dept.

Sneakernets writes "CNN reports that NASA may have found life on Mars via the Viking space probes in 1976-77, but failed to recognize it and killed it by accident. Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a geology professor at Washington State University, says that Mars microbes that the space probes had found were possibly drowned and baked by accident. Other experts said the new concept is plausible, but more work is needed before they are convinced. From the article: 'A new NASA Mars mission called Phoenix is set for launch this summer, and one of the scientists involved said he is eager to test the new theory about life on Mars. However, scientists must come up with a way to do that using the mission's existing scientific instruments, said NASA astrobiologist and Phoenix co-investigator Chris McKay.'"

Kyle: Wow! That's a lot of seamen, Cartman.
Cartman: Yeah, I bought all that I could at this bank, and then I got the rest from this guy Ralph in an alley.
Stan: That's cool.
Cartman: Yeah, and the sweet thing is, the stupid asshole didn't even charge me money for it. He just made me close my eyes and suck on a hose.

Yes, it won't be long before NASA starts doing environmental damage reports before they start landing any more probes anywhere else. The environmentalists of the Flat Earth Society finally came up with the most effective way to shut down the space program.

This is rather similar to what I thought when I was watching a video at school once. The video claimed their was no life on Mars (Or any other planet for that matter) because they lacked the key conditions life needs. The lack of water, or stable temperature or decent atmosphere etc were all touted as being proof that life couldn't exist on these planets.

My immediate thought was Why are we deciding all life is the same here? There are different species on the earth who need different amounts of things, Just because we all need water and a regular-ish temperature doesn't make potential alien life follow that rule. This scientist seems to be agreeing with me. Which is more then my teacher did at the time.

star trek had an episode similar to this, altho they didn't kill the life form.
someone else will have to help with the details, but i do remember that the crew scanned the planet and found no life, which later they had to revise as "no carbon based life found".
this issue has bothered me as well, when i hear that planets/environments are hostile to life. of course they might be hostile to our kind of life, but who knows what the hell is out there?

star trek had an episode similar to this, altho they didn't kill the life form. someone else will have to help with the details...

I believe that's the "Devil in the Dark" episode. Miners accidentally destroy some alien eggs thinking they're just rocks. Silicon-based mummy alien gets mad and starts harrassing the mining operation until Spock works out that they're dealing with sentient life and the apologies start flowing.

the one i'm thinking of was from TNG...the thing was superintelligent, and as a result, superbored. it sort of swallowed up riker, iirc, and wanted the rest of the crew to entertain it...

Skin of Evil? That's the one where Yar died by the creature who was composed of everything bad discarded from a particular race. I think the TNG episode closest to this is the terraforming project where they had the crystalline life forms (they called humans "bags of mostly water") which existed in the water layer just below the surface.

Yeah that sounds like it to me. The crystals were making words in the sand, but hte miners ignored it so the crystals ended up killing one of them. Then the crystal started multiplying inside the science hall, and disrupting the power. Classic episode. Iirc its late season 1.

We have found many new and oddball extremophiles over the last few decades living right here on Earth in places that were once considered impossibly "hostile to life". This has resulted in a tree of life [wikipedia.org] with many more branches than the animal, plant and fungi ones I was taught at high school.

The three "essential ingredients" for life now seem to be carbon, water and energy but we haven't finished searching the planet yet, let alone our solar system and beyond.

If you look at the three branches in the top RHS of the tree in figure 1, you will see three brances labeled, "plants", "animals" and "fungi". I and many others were taught in an early 70's high school that all life could be classified as belonging to one of those three branches, bacteria were explained as single celled members of one of the 3 branches, one example we were given was an ameboa [sic?] was like an animal because "it hunts other single cell critters and eats them" and they had a B&W movie to demonstrate it. I don't claim that it was correct but it's what I was taught at the time.

I first realised the tree was bigger in the early 90's, a documentry explained the lifecycle of slime mold complete with timelapse sequences showing off it's plant, animal and fungal features, but still, that was only four branches in my layman's version of the tree. A few years later I read a book [amazon.com] about how "Alvin" the submersible had expanded the tree with the weird and wonderfull critters that live around deep sea vents and gave a picture similar to figure 1. I've also heard of other branches that extract energy from uranium 2km below ground and still others that live on the cooling rods of nuclear reactors.

Maybe none of this is news to you, but it was to me when I heard it so I thought I would pass it on. Speaking of passing things on, here is an animation [youtube.com] you might enjoy. It's from a group of Havard microboligists showing the workings of a single cell, the animation is set to music so it's up to you if you want to reasearch what is happening. I thought I knew a little bit about cells assembling protiens and such until I saw that video on the news and was awe struck by the sheer complexity of natures nano-machines that have somehow got together and decided to build a pile of temporarily cooperative atoms capable of contemplating it's own navel, (ie: "me").

Star Trek: The Next Generation -- _Home Soil_The planet was being terraformed, but the intelligent crystal beings that lived in the thin layer of water under the sand re-programmed the laser drill and killed at least one of them.

My favorite quote from that episode:

"Ugly bags of mostly water"

That's how the "micro-brain" referred to the humans. At my job not long after that episode aired, I was in the break room with a cow-orker and opened up the drawer to find the instant coffee packs. I held one up and sa

This is the Star Trek episode where we got to hear McCoy complain to Capt Kirk, "Damn-it Jim, I'm a doctor not a bricklayer!" as he was patching the wounds on the Horta.
That quote is mentioned on the bottom of the Wikipedia page.

Rock monster? Please turn in your geek card at the door.;^)
Just for grins, what is your name for the furry creatures in "The Trouble with Tribbles?":^)

First, there is an 'energy' definition of life. That is to say, alien life may not be carbon-based, may not use water, may not be composed of cells, and may not have DNA inside of it. However, one of the defining characteristics of life is that it uses energy. It metabolizes, grows, and reproduces. It eats something, somehow. It makes a waste product.

So, if we look at a planet's chemical composition, we can make a good guess as to whether there is life there by looking at its chemistry. If there are living things there, they will be making reactive chemicals. From outer space, we could tell that the Earth has a lot of metabolic activity in it, because the sky is mostly highly reactive oxygen that is a result of plant respiration. Mars, on the other hand, is mostly chemically inert. There is very little metabolism going on there, if there is any at all. Either life there has already eaten up the planet, or else there wasn't enough resource to really get started, or there was never life at all.

Secondly, let's talk about a scenario where life can really only happen with water and organic ( meaning carbon-containing ) compounds. What conditions are necessary for life? What conditions does life thrive in? Take the Earth as an example. Where do we find the greatest mass and biodiversity? In the oceans. Ocean water is practically alive itself, there is so much life in it. On land, the places with the greatest biomass and biodiversity are the rainforests, where they have near 100% humidity. So water as a medium seem to really grow and reproduce. What temperature range do we find the most life in? About 70-90 degrees F -- I'm talking about the *most* life. So the metabolism of life forms seems to function optimally at 70-90 F.

The point I'm trying to make is that yes, we do find life in weird places on Earth -- inside solid rock, in 200 degree sulfuric vents on the ocean floor, inside nuclear reactor cores. However, there isn't very much of it in terms of biomass, and there's not much diversity of forms. My guess is that those 'extremophiles' are descendants of creatures who lived in more hospital environments and became adapted to increasingly extreme environments. I don't think that life originated in rocks or in ocean vents. I think life originated in an environment that is most like where we find the greatest biomass and biodiversity -- water in sunlight at about 60-120 F.

If we're not talking about the above scenarios, we are getting away from materialism, and thus science. This might include "Imagine beings of pure energy" (hey, atoms are 'pure energy') or "What if the sun is conscious?" ( well, we can't measure consciousness *yet* so we can't tell scientifically ) These are fun to think about, but scientifically they are kind of a non-starter.

I understand what you're saying about thinking outside the box, expecting the unexpected, and not limiting our minds or our past experiences. But science puts some serious restraints on what we can imagine or postulate *scientifically*.

From outer space, we could tell that the Earth has a lot of metabolic activity in it, because the sky is mostly highly reactive oxygen that is a result of plant respiration. Mars, on the other hand, is mostly chemically inert.

But small amounts of methane have been detected around Mars, which is a possible result of respiration.

we do find life in weird places on Earth -- inside solid rock, in 200 degree sulfuric vents on the ocean floor, inside nuclear reactor cores. However, there isn't very much of it i

I think life originated in an environment that is most like where we find the greatest biomass and biodiversity -- water in sunlight at about 60-120 F....and amazingly enough Mars was probably a much more hospitable place in the past. So thank you for your argument supporting of potential life on Mars.

My guess is that those 'extremophiles' are descendants of creatures who lived in more hospital environments and became adapted to increasingly extreme environments. I don't think that life originated in rocks or in ocean vents. I think life originated in an environment that is most like where we find the greatest biomass and biodiversity -- water in sunlight at about 60-120 F.

Except that life originated in an anaerobic environment: oxygen was not a significant component of Earth's atmosphere for hundreds of millions of years after life began. When oxygen did increase, the atmosphere became inhospitable to those early organisms.

We find a large amount of biodiversity in (now) hospitable environments because of chlorophyl: early plant-like organisms evolved a way to produce energy from sunlight and carbon dioxide. The waste product was oxygen, which still newer organisms were

You can't take the Earth as an "example" of how life works on other planets when there isn't life on other planets. It's like saying, "all universes work this way because ours does". Or "look, I was able dodge getting shot once, I am the One!!"

***From outer space, we could tell that the Earth has a lot of metabolic activity in it, because the sky is mostly highly reactive oxygen that is a result of plant respiration. Mars, on the other hand, is mostly chemically inert. There is very little metabolism going on there, if there is any at all. Either life there has already eaten up the planet, or else there wasn't enough resource to really get started, or there was never life at all.***

First, there is an 'energy' definition of life. That is to say, alien life may not be carbon-based, may not use water, may not be composed of cells, and may not have DNA inside of it. However, one of the defining characteristics of life is that it uses energy. It metabolizes, grows, and reproduces. It eats something, somehow. It makes a waste product.

This is something that's always puzzled me - by this definition, wouldn't Fire be considered a life-form?

Life also acts against entropy. You take in simple molecules and synthesize them into more complicated ones and arrange them in ordered structures. Fire (burning wood) takes those ordered structures and breaks them down into minimum energy molecules.

However, one of the defining characteristics of life is that it uses energy. It metabolizes, grows, and reproduces. It eats something, somehow. It makes a waste product. So, if we look at a planet's chemical composition, we can make a good guess as to whether there is life there by looking at its chemistry. If there are living things there, they will be making reactive chemicals.

Uh ? There seems to be a non-sequitur here. Living organisms consume free energy, they do not create it (in a strict, global sens

Arthur C Clarke wrote a story about that called Report on Planet Three, in which the Martians establish beyond doubt that life on Earth is impossible due to the corrosive oxygen in our atmosphere, high temperature, etc.

There are fundamental chemistry issues (energy, stability, etc.) that limits the likely composition and needs of any kind of life. There is a Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] that does a decent job of describing why even the more plausible forms of non-carbon based life are unlikely. Yes, there are many possibilities for life, but the laws of physics still apply.

Carl Sagan wrote some great material on the topic as well. I particularly like his reasoning on why it makes sense that any alien life would have developed the ability to sense a similar portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that we can.

life would be different on a planet with entirely different conditions

But it's almost a pre-requisite that there must be a liquid medium available for life to exist. Chemicals in a solid can't move around enough to go through the complexity of reactions and in a gas they're too far apart.

Also the liquid almost has to be water in order to dissolve the wide variety of chemicals you need (although you could argue that organic solvents would work if life was mostly carbon based).

You also need compounds which can form large and varied molecules in order to carry enough information for a genome. Some people have suggested silicon based compounds could form large enough (and varied enough) molecules but I doubt it personally, which leaves carbon molecules as the only realistic basis for life.

We end up with carbon based life forms existing only where liquid water is available and consequently no life on mars - as experiment after experiment has found.

NASA pushes life on Mars as a possibility because it's a justification for their continued existence and their proposed (pointless) manned trips there.

Admittedly it's difficult to prove a negative and there the faint possiblity of some weird "energy based" lifeform or something like that but, in practice, (and unless some unexpected evidence shows up) Occam's Razor tells us there is no life on Mars. It's disappointing but try to be logical about it.

From TFA: "Given the cold dry conditions of Mars, life could have evolved on Mars with the key internal fluid consisting of a mix of water and hydrogen peroxide, said Schulze-Makuch."

The important point is that a new possibility for the nature of life on Mars has been suggested. If there is any life in this form it would not have been detected by previous experiements. This is interesting because it keeps open the possibility of what would be the greatest discovery ever - life on another planet. The minor point that the testing process could have killed the specific bacteria it sampled is - apart from the obligatory jokes - totally irellevant.

It is very difficult to devise experiments for distant probes because they cannot adapt experiments to previous findings from themselves very well. The only real way to know if there is life is to take samples back to a well-equiped manned lab with top microscopes. The problem is the risk of contaminating the whole planet. It is small, but well worth preventing. This leaves an in-orbit or moon lab. That way if the astronaut scientists find bad stuff, they are quarenteened in space. This is the *real* use fo

Back in the 70's the results of the "chicken soup" (gas exchange) experiment on board the Vikings were frustratingly inconclusive - the resulting single release of gas when combining martian soil with a mixture of likely nutrients could have been produced by several mechanisms: (1) a simple chemical reaction between the soil sample and the "soup", or (2) the death rattles of an organism poisoned by the "soup" or (3) the initial metabolic release of (an) organism(s) that ate itself to death like a goldfish on the nutrient "soup".

That's what the press release(s) said - once the White House spin machine got hold of it, and someone noticed that 'historectioptimy' was too long for the average American to grasp & that neither 'arse' nor 'butt' was the right way to spell 'face', history took yet another slight left turn and viola...story now garners sympathy rather than guffawpathy.

That's what you get for sending a robot to do a man's job. Let's quit futzing around with probes, and put a properly equipped science team on the planet.

Got a half trillion bucks laying around? Or did you blow it on a dumb war again?

Seriously, if the goal is to detect life, probes are still far cheaper. A sample return mission can relatively easily be carried out by remote control probably at about 1/5 to 1/10 the cost of a manned mission per rock.

The Viking space probes of 1976-77 were looking for the wrong kind of life, so they didn't recognize it, a geology professor at Washington State University said.

Sensationatilism:

Two NASA space probes that visited Mars 30 years ago may have found alien microbes on the Red Planet and inadvertently killed them, a scientist is theorizing.

To show how full of crap it is:

Schulze-Makuch acknowledges he can't prove that Martian microbes exist, but given the Martian environment and how evolution works, "it makes sense."

So if there are microbes left, NASA was lucky, and if there are none, NASA has killed them all.And if there are microbes, Schulze-Makuch is happy because NASA didn't kill them all and his name is in history again, while if there are none, it would be exactly how Schulze-Makuch had predicted it!

In the 1970's, comedian Don Novello (of Father Guido Sarducci fame) wrote a book called the "Lazlo Lettets" where he would write tongue in cheek letters to a wide variety of people and places like the President, Hotels, and of course NASA. His alter ego Lazlo Toth observered that if NASA were to scoop up martian soil and burn it to find life, that NASA would have more appropriately found life, but killed it so they wouldn't be able to actually prove that life still existed. I don't recall the content what NASA's response letter.

Debate [wikipedia.org] over the validity of the biological experiments on the Viking probes has been going on since the probes landed.

You see.... several of the biological experiments on Viking turned up positive. However, this result contradicted other components of the same experiment, which indicated that there were no organic molecules in the soil, among other factors, making the possibility of life existing in those soil samples remotely minute.

It was largely agreed upon that the experiments were inconclusive and poorly designed all the way back in the 80s. The fact that this guy is making this argument about an experiment that yielded a false-positive is somewhat absurd. The bits of the experiment that turned up negative would have hypothetically yielded the same result on a living organism as a dead one.

The ill-fated Beagle 2 [wikipedia.org] probe was supposed to repeat/confirm several of the Viking experiments.

Of course, that's not to say that we shouldn't be reproducing these experiments to figure out what went wrong, and what produced the false positive, as I'm sure there's plenty of interesting science to be explored there as well. I wouldn't completely rule out the possibility of life on mars either -- as mentioned earlier, the experiments were inconclusive.

Of course, it is entirely possible (to take a Devil's Advocate position), that the negative results were the 'false' ones, and the positive results the correct ones.
To borrow from an archaeologist: 'A lack of evidence isn't evidence of a lack.'

For those of you just tuning in, WSU is a well-known drinking school. People wear sweatshirts that say, "Our Drinking Team Has a Football Problem." And their football team has its share of problems, too: They lost to the UW Huskies when the latter was having a horrible year. This proves, of course, that the Cougars are still the Cougars.

Previously...
NASA Supervisor: "Look, matey, I know a dead bacteria when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now."
NASA Employee: "No, no, he's restin'! Look, there, it just moved!"
NASA Supervisor: "No it didn't, you bumped the petri dish!"
NASA Employee: "No, I never did anything."